Greed

[Ding!]

[Detected that the host has triggered a side story: the eve of the Kyoto Sister-School Goodwill Event!]

[Mission issued: crush every participant at the Goodwill Event and seize the Special Grade Cursed Tool!]

[Mission reward: based on the amount plundered, with a guaranteed minimum of 100 million Japanese yen!]

Yagami Jue's eyes lit up the moment he heard the mission.

"Crush every participant?"

"Seize the Special Grade Cursed Tool?"

He looked at Aoi Todo in front of him, a cruel, greedy smile curling his lips.

"Hey, musclehead."

"So you want to be my best friend?"

Yagami Jue rolled his neck, making it crack.

"When the Goodwill Event starts, bring me everything valuable your school has."

"Otherwise, I'll turn my best friend here into ground meat."

The smells of blood and gunpowder still lingered in the air on the hill behind the school.

Aoi Todo's battered, swollen face was filled with a deeply twisted fervor.

"That's my best friend! Such soul-shaking power!"

"Again! Let our souls ascend through battle!"

Yagami Jue rolled his eyes, toying with the bloodstained bullet in his hand.

"Ascend my ass. That one-minute Gate of Healing trial cost me a fortune."

He glanced sideways at Mai Zenin, who sat on the ground, her pretty face pale with terror.

Then at Momo Nishimiya, whose hands were trembling as she sat astride her broom.

"Hey, short hair, and you, the street sweeper."

Yagami Jue pointed at them.

"We need to settle the bill for that shot."

"Emotional damages, plus wear and tear on my clothes. Twenty million total, or nobody leaves today."

"Twenty million?!"

Momo Nishimiya almost fell off her broom in anger.

"That's just an ordinary school uniform! How could wear and tear cost twenty million?!"

"This is outright robbery!"

Mai Zenin gritted her teeth too, glaring at Yagami Jue.

"Yagami Jue, don't push your luck. The higher-ups already have their eyes on you. Do you think killing a few Grade 1 sorcerers means you can rule Jujutsu Society single-handedly?"

"You talk too much."

Yagami Jue's gaze abruptly turned cold.

The killing intent of the Heavenly Tyrant crashed over them like a tsunami.

Momo Nishimiya and Mai Zenin instantly found themselves unable to breathe, as though an invisible hand had clamped around their throats.

Fear seeped from every pore.

This feeling... was even more hopeless than facing a special grade cursed spirit!

Clap!

Satoru Gojo, who had been crouching nearby watching the show, suddenly clapped his hands.

"All right, all right, Jue. Don't make everything about money. It's so tacky."

Like a teleporting ghost, Satoru Gojo abruptly appeared beside Yagami Jue and slung an arm around his shoulders.

"I think the Zenin Clan is pretty rich too, but you should at least leave them enough to buy coffins, right?"

Looking disgusted, Yagami Jue pushed Satoru Gojo's face away.

"Get lost. Stop rubbing against me. You don't even have Limitless on. Keep your distance."

Satoru Gojo didn't get angry. He smiled at the three from Kyoto Jujutsu High.

"Mai, go back and tell that stubborn old Principal Gakuganji."

"Jue is a student I, Satoru Gojo, personally teach. If you dare pull any more sneaky little tricks behind our backs..."

"I won't mind going to Kyoto myself, tearing his old bones apart, and feeding them to cursed spirits."

Satoru Gojo was still smiling as he said it, but the cold glint in his Six Eyes instantly sent the surrounding temperature plummeting to freezing.

"Off you go."

Satoru Gojo waved his hand, signaling for the Kyoto Jujutsu High students to get lost.

Mai Zenin bit her lip hard. In the end, she could only help the severely injured Aoi Todo to his feet and slink away under Momo Nishimiya's cover.

"Best friend! I'll be waiting for you at the Goodwill Event!"

Before leaving, Aoi Todo still remembered to turn back and bellow.

Yagami Jue simply gave him the middle finger.

"Phew..."

Only after the Kyoto Jujutsu High students were far away did Asakura Yuki and Junpei Yoshino breathe sighs of relief.

The two slumped to the ground, their backs soaked in cold sweat.

That level of confrontation had felt like a brush with death to them.

"Yagami... just how many enemies have you made?"

Asakura Yuki asked quietly, worry filling her wide eyes.

She felt as though every day since she had started following Yagami Jue had been a gamble with her life.

"Enemies?"

Yagami Jue glanced at the system panel.

"To me, there are only monsters that drop coins and trash that doesn't."

"All right, quit playing dead. Keep training!"

He pointed at the two rocks they had yet to break, his tone as stern as a drill instructor's.

"Junpei, you applied force in the wrong place with that last punch. Go back and do it again!"

"Yuki, if you dare punch with your eyes closed again, I'll make you streak around the field!"

"No!"

Asakura Yuki cried out, her pretty face crimson with embarrassment and indignation.

She knew Yagami Jue was trying to scare her, but that pervert might actually do it!

And so, thudding impacts once again rang out across the hill.

The two rookies endured the excruciating pain, pounding the hard rocks like mad.

Meanwhile, Yagami Jue sat in the shade of a tree and began working out his next move.

"System, open the attribute panel."

[Host: Yagami Jue]

[Constitution: 70,538 (restored after the Gate of Life closed)]

[Strength: 25,610]

[Speed: 26,552]

[Balance: 1.35 billion Japanese yen]

[Skills: Eight Gates Formation (Gates One through Three), top-tier power application technique: Flowing Water Crushed Rock Fist, low-grade cursed tool brass knuckles]

My constitution's almost at a hundred thousand, but my strength's still too low.

It takes several punches to get those thick-skinned cursed spirits to drop coins. Too inefficient.

Yagami Jue muttered inwardly.

"System, put the entire remaining 1.35 billion into strength and speed!"

"I'm going to be the fastest, toughest, strongest man in this world!"

[Ding!]

[Top-up successful! Deducted 1.35 billion Japanese yen!]

[Strength increased to: 93,110!]

[Speed increased to: 94,052!]

[As all attributes are approaching the critical threshold of 100,000, the system will initiate 'Secondary Physical Evolution'!]

[During evolution, the host will enter a twenty-four-hour dormant state.]

"What the fuck? Dormancy?"

Yagami Jue had barely begun to curse when overwhelming drowsiness crashed over him like a tsunami.

His eyelids grew unbearably heavy, and thunderous rumbling came from inside his body.

It was the sound of his cells ravenously devouring energy and his bones reshaping themselves!

"Hey, Jue? How did you fall asleep sitting up?"

Satoru Gojo walked over and was about to reach out to touch Yagami Jue.

Suddenly, his hand stopped a centimeter from Yagami Jue's skin.

His Six Eyes widened, disbelief written all over his face.

"What... is going on?"

"There's no cursed energy, but the heat from his body is actually warping the space around him?"

Satoru Gojo sensed that Yagami Jue was now like a nuclear reactor on the brink of criticality.

If he erupted, it would be enough to flatten all of Tokyo!

"Megumi! Yuji! Get over here!"

Satoru Gojo called his students over, his expression grave.

"Carry this guy to the underground confinement room. Be gentle!"

"If you don't want the air pressure leaking off him to shatter your organs, don't touch his skin directly!"

Megumi Fushiguro and Yuji Itadori ran over, utterly bewildered.

Seeing Yagami Jue's entire body giving off a faint red glow, his skin as hot as red-hot iron, shattered their understanding of the world all over again.

Was this a fucking human sleeping?

This was clearly a god evolving!

Twenty-four hours later.

The underground confinement room at Jujutsu High.

Satoru Gojo had reinforced this place with more than a dozen layers of his strongest barriers.

Yet now, the barrier walls were covered in spiderweb-like cracks.

Crack...

As the final piece of flooring crumbled into powder, the sleeping Yagami Jue slowly opened his eyes.

For an instant, black lightning seemed to flash through them.

The air pressure throughout the basement instantly shot off the charts!

"Haaa..."

Yagami Jue exhaled a stale breath. The column of air shot out like a white dragon, punching a deep hole straight into the concrete wall opposite him.

"That feels good!"

He clenched his fists, feeling the terrifying, ocean-like power inside him.

"System, bring up the panel!"

[Host: Yagami Jue]

[Title: Ultimate Heavenly Tyrant]

[Strength: 125,610]

[Speed: 126,552]

[Constitution: 110,538]

[New abilities: Physical Immunity (immune to direct cursed energy damage below Grade 2), true perception (can lock onto all living beings)]

[Account balance: 0 (Broke Mode activated)]

"Past a hundred thousand..."